Stakeholders in the Education sector yesterday lauded President Goodluck Jonathan for giving the sector the highest budgetary allocation in the 2013 Appropriation Bill presented on Wednesday.

Jonathan had proposed a N4.9 trillion ($32 billion) budget to the joint session of the National Assembly for approval.

The proposal allotted N426.5 billion to education while Defence came second with N348.9 billion and the Police had the third highest share of N319 billion.

A former Minister of Education, Mrs Chinwe Obaji, said in an interview that the move was "a right step in the right direction."

"We are happy to see such a development coming to the education sector, depending on where the money will be applied to. Having said this, we must also wait and see if the said amount will be released fully and the implementation carried out without a hitch.

"I also hope that the bill will be speedily looked into and the funds quickly released to take care of capital projects in the sector," she said.

Also speaking, Prof. Ukachukwu Awuzie, immediate past President, Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), expressed the hope that the education vote, if approved, would turn around the fortunes of the sector.

"If actually the fund is released to the sector, it means that we have started seeing the need in getting our priorities right because the emphasis should be on human capital development.

"However, we would need time to look at how the budget to the sector got to be one of the highest beneficiary, where it should be channelled, the implementation, how it should be managed and what it portends to the sector.

"It is only when we study all these details that we would be able to get a better view of how this would transform the system for the advancement of the country's economy," he said.

Mr Ademola Onifade, Director, Centre for Environment and Science Education, at the university, said the "jumbo allocation" would improve the standard of education in the country.

"This is a good development. In so many years, education has not been given this kind of attention.

"The allocation will help to improve education in all areas in terms of infrastructure and welfare of teachers and workers in the sector. Training and retraining of teachers is very important and it will help them to acquire the right knowledge to teach their students," he said. (NAN)